


Growing Pains

by sharkgloves



Category: A-Team (2010)
Genre: Angst, Crack, Humour, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-13
Updated: 2011-12-13
Packaged: 2017-10-27 07:42:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,428
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/293336
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sharkgloves/pseuds/sharkgloves
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Face is a sex addict with perfect teeth and a great ass: Murdock's got his own issues.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Growing Pains

Face wasn't entirely sure why everyone around him seemed to think that he was some kind of sex addict with no impulse control, but he didn't think it was all that fair. Because, sure, he got laid on a pretty regular basis, but probably no more than any other twenty six year old ex-Altar boy with perfect teeth and a great ass. He was clearly a victim of profiling.

And, okay, yes, he had tried to sleep with Hannibal when they first met, but that was a misunderstanding and he doesn't think he should have to keep apologising for it. How was he supposed to know that sometimes a cigar really was just a cigar?

So when Hannibal decided that they were going to keep the two strays they had picked up by the side of the road in Mexico, Face had known it was just a matter of time before he had to suffer through another version of The Talk. And sure enough, as soon as BA and Murdock had officially gone from ex to current Rangers, Hannibal had sat Face down and put on his best Dad voice. The one that really made Face squirm.

“Now, I'm not going to forbid you from sleeping with them, kid,” he had said, towering over Face and using his sternest Dad expression to show that he meant it. Face had quickly crossed his legs. “But only because I know that if I _did_ say that you just wouldn't be able to help yourself. What I _am_ going to say is that if you absolutely have to sleep with one or both of them then it can't interfere with the team. Those boys are going to be like brothers to you, Face. They're going to be family.”

Which was probably Hannibal's way of trying to put him off the idea by making it sound like incest. Which wasn't a bad shot, in all honesty, and might even have done the trick if Face hadn't already had a really warped idea of family thanks to some pretty inappropriate Fathers and Sisters he had encountered at the orphanage. Hannibal would have to try harder than that.

Not that Face's heart and parts beyond had been particularly set on sexing up the new recruits. They were both hot enough, he supposed, in their own ways, but nothing worth risking the wrath of Hannibal. Besides, it wasn't like Face ever lacked options.

No, all in all he'd been pretty content just getting to know BA and Murdock in all the non-Biblical senses of the word. He'd never had brothers before. He kind of liked the idea of it.

So it'd been a few months now since that talk and since their tried and tested duo became a team, and Face had yet to make any attempt to sleep with either BA or Murdock. It wasn't quite a personal best, but he could tell Hannibal wasn't sure whether to be pleasantly surprised or deeply suspicious.

It'd been pretty easy actually. It wasn't like the past few months had been uneventful. Who knew that turning a group of four strangers into a family wouldn't exactly end up being the easiest thing in the world?

The problem wasn't really BA, even though he still refused to fly and had managed to get himself kicked out of the army, which to Face's mind could only have meant that he wasn't smart enough to not get caught. It came as a surprise then to learn that the guy was pretty much a genius when it came to machines and no slouch when it came to anything else. BA read books that Face hadn't even heard of, even if he did hide them inside car magazines to try and keep up his image.

So even though BA was probably not the kind of guy that your Mom prayed you would bring home, he fit into the team just fine. He was tough and quick and just about the best person in the world to have at your side in a fight. He definitely got Face's stamp of approval.

Murdock though... Yeah. If the four of them were a family then Murdock was definitely the problem child.

And it wasn't the whole setting Face's arm on fire thing: Face was completely over that by now. Bygones. But perhaps that particular incident should really have been taken as a sign that, hey, the guy had been living on a psyche ward for the best part of two years and, hey, he probably wasn't there for the mountain air.

A little bit of insanity in a team mate may sound like a barrel of laughs, but the reality turned out to be more a combination of frustrating and utterly fucking heartbreaking.

The main issue in those first weeks had been Murdock and his approach to his meds. His approach mostly being not wanting to take them, something the hospital hadn't bothered passing on to Face. Their first clue that maybe Murdock wasn't in love with being medicated came when he barricaded himself in the bathroom with a potato peeler and all of their shoes and started to go into withdrawal. That had been... less than fun.

At the moment they were trying to strike a balance between keeping Murdock functioning and letting him come off some of the less necessary pills. The ones he swore blind that he didn't really need. The ones that had reduced him to tears when Hannibal tried to make taking them an order.

What this meant in reality was that the past few months had seen Murdock on a roving cocktail of medication, which meant that they had been seeing a roving cocktail of Murdocks. If Face were able to remove himself from the situation a little more he was sure he would find the whole thing fascinating, but as it was he just really wanted them to be able to find the right mix. The mix that would quiet Murdock's demons and let the real Murdock step free and join them.

Recently, the various Murdocks have started to take on some sort of a unity, which was heartening and made Face finally start to believe that the best place for Murdock really was with them. Even if at times their situation felt like they were starring in a twisted reality show version of _Three Men and a Baby_. Coming to you this Fall on Fox.

Because maybe Murdock did need more care than three soldiers with varying degrees of patience could give him, but that didn't mean that he needed to be locked away somewhere to rot. He was already a lot better than he had been when they first took him out of that hospital and they could get him more help if and when he needed it. Face was pretty sure that was the sort of thing families did for one another.

Another thing that had come out of this was simply that Face really liked the guy who was beginning to take shape under this new regime of meds. Face never had brothers growing up, but he thought having Murdock around might be kind of what it was like to have a kid brother. He was a lot of fun and just a genuinely sweet guy and he looked up to Face, looked up to all of them, with this expression of wonder in his eyes like he couldn't quite believe they were real.

It made something inside Face's chest hurt to see it. Made him know that this was right.

And in case the top brass wanted to say that was just Face's biased opinion, they now had four official missions as a team under their belt. Four successful missions to throw in the face of anyone who said that BA didn't belong in the army and Murdock belonged in a rubber room.

Face wasn't going to lie: things weren't entirely perfect. BA still needed to be bodily dragged onto anything that might potentially leave the ground and Murdock was still a space case who thought it was a good idea to serenade the guys shooting at them. It was fair to say that neither of them were going to end up on the Airborne recruitment posters. They were both steady as all Hell in the field though and they got the job done. That spoke for itself.

Despite these wrinkles, or possibly _because_ of them, there was just something about the four of them together that made perfect sense to Face. When they were joined together and working in perfect harmony he felt like they were unstoppable. Like the four of them had been born to do only this.

This latest mission of theirs had been a total bitch from the start though. Face was convinced that if it had been just him and Hannibal, or even them and any two other guys in the world, there would have been no happy ending, they would all have found themselves reduced to so much charred meat in travel-sized chunks. Without Murdock's insane reflexes and BA's fearless strength and the shared wavelength the four of them seemed to be able to tap into, none of them would have made it out of that meat-grinder alive.

So the guys keeping score can chalk it up as a win, but in the aftermath Face was left aching and exhausted and feeling like he was caged inside his own skin. Personal experience told him that this kind of jittery energy would only settle after he had gotten blind drunk and spectacularly laid. Not necessarily in that order. It looked like the other three were in a similar state.

Which was why he was forced to question Hannibal's sanity when the man with the plan chose to hold their post-mission drinking session in what had to be the worst bar in the entire Western hemisphere. Shitty beer, worse Tequila, disgusting bathrooms, bad Country on the jukebox, homely waitstaff, a clientèle that seemed to have all sprung from the same extremely shallow gene pool... need he go on?

It was when Face found himself getting knocked back by the least homely waitress in the place that he decided Hannibal had to have either chosen this place with the sole purpose of punishing Face, or lost a bet. Possibly with Murdock, who had a deeply sick sense of humour. Those were the only explanations that made any kind of sense.

They had been there about two hours now and Face had gotten on the outside of about a gallon of highly-flammable alcohol and gotten on the inside of precisely no one at all. Not because he couldn't, because let's be honest: Face could, and _had_ , gotten laid in a Tibetan monastery. He was that good. The problem here was that although the alcohol tasted like the Devil's backwash and was currently doing unspeakable things to his stomach lining, it didn't seem to be quite potent enough to let Face relax his standards enough to score in this place.

Some higher power definitely had it in for him tonight.

He'd got a bit of a buzz on now though. Not enough to make him return the looks the cougar with the frosted perm kept shooting his way, but enough to let him try his hand at a bit of pool hustling. Face wasn't actually all that good at pool, but it turned out that BA really was so Face could make it work.

BA was less than enthusiastic, but Face knew him well enough by now to tell when he was a lost cause and when he would cave to a bit of pressure. It only took Face five minutes of whining before BA was joining him at the table.

Murdock was about as good at pool as BA and normally far easier to pull into a con, but he'd begged off this time. Which had put a bit of a kink in Face's con because he was pretty sure he could pass Murdock off as his slow cousin from the country a lot easier than he could BA. You work with what you've got though.

Murdock had been in a bit of an odd mood all night really. Odd even by his standards. He'd been quieter than usual but it was a restless quiet full of discordant energy that raised Face's hackles and made him glad that Murdock seemed unable to sit still for any length of time and kept wandering off to prowl the room.

The mission had been hard on all of them, but perhaps more so on Murdock. Coming inches from having your throat slit was pretty standard for Face at this point, but Murdock had just spent eighteen months with his biggest worry being what colour Jello he wanted with his meal. You couldn't blame a guy for being a bit shaken.

It was just that Murdock didn't really seem shaken, not how Face would have expected anyway. He hadn't gotten confused or upset or fallen apart a little in the way Face had seen time and again over the past few months when he was confronted with situations he didn't know how to handle. Instead the knife at his throat seemed to have crystallised something in Murdock: made him sharp and shining and the most interesting thing in the place.

The most interesting and, where Face was concerned, the most dangerous. It was probably a good thing that Murdock hadn't been in the mood to handle long sticks and bend over tables. BA could work the con just as well and provide a view just as distracting and far less complicated. Though more likely to break his nose if he caught Face watching too closely.

Face found the least-stained patch of wall and leaned against it, taking another sip of his toxic drink and idly scanning the room. BA was lining up his next shot and Face took a moment to appreciate the cut of his jeans. Oh yeah. Those were some good jeans all right. Yep. So BA was lining up his next shot and Hannibal was talking to... hey! Okay, somehow Hannibal had managed to conjure a beautiful woman out of thin air and without Face noticing, the sly old bastard. He had much to teach Face.

Hannibal and BA were accounted for anyway. It was just Murdock that he couldn't see.

It occurred to Face, as it really should have earlier, that he might not have been the only one to notice something both enticing and jarringly wrong twisted through Murdock tonight. Combining a bunch of bored rednecks and some epically bad alcohol and then throwing something like Murdock into the mix, something they couldn't possibly understand, might not have been the best idea in the world.

The last place Face remembered seeing him was at the bar talking to some guys. Which was kind of weird in itself, now he thought about it, as Murdock had turned out to be a bit shy and wary of strangers ever since they eased up on his medication. He tended to stay close to the rest of the team whenever possible.

BA walked over, satisfied look on his face at his last shot. Face was kind of sorry he'd missed it: it had to have been something spectacular to sink the red from that angle.

“You seen Murdock?” Face asked, trying for casual. He didn't know that anything was wrong here: it was just as likely that Murdock had gone back to the hotel or wandered outside and made friends with a stray cat.

BA looked at Face for a long second, seemed to be considering his answer, and then he shrugged. “Fool went out back.”

Face held BA's eyes a moment longer, feeling like he was missing something, but BA just nodded at the back door and Face found himself walking in that direction.

He wasn't worried about Murdock. Not really. But something, some nagging instinct, took him through the door and out round the back of the bar where there was a poorly-lit alley that stank of piss and garbage. Along with the stench and the cold air on his face he was immediately hit by the sound of something he recognised straight away. And it wasn't surprise that he felt when he saw three guys with Murdock down on his knees in front of them. It wasn't surprise at all.

Face didn't feel surprise, didn't feel anything past the blood red wave that roared up behind his eyes. He was dimly aware of his body moving forward and his knuckles impacting against something hard again and again, but it was all happening to someone else as he stood on the sidelines watching. Watching as his body tore into those fuckers who had Murdock out here on his knees like he was nothing.

And then it was Murdock in front of him, grabbing at Face's arms and his mouth open like he was yelling something that Face couldn't hear over the clamour in his ears. Murdock hanging onto his arms and getting in the way so that the one good hit these three faceless guys had between them didn't even manage to connect with Face and instead glanced off Murdock's jaw and Face was going after that guy. Going after anyone who had dared, fucking _dared_ , lay their hands on Murdock.

But they were gone now, all three of them fled, and Face's knuckles were singing and he could feel his blood pumping all through his body from his toes to his clenched fists. There was no one left in the alley but him and Murdock. Murdock clutching his jaw and staring at Face with huge eyes.

“Are you...” Face could barely speak: his tongue too thick for his mouth, his lungs too tight to draw breath. “Are you okay?”

Murdock let his hand drop slowly from his face and raised his eyebrows like it might be a trick question. “Am I _okay_? Well, I don't know. You gonna hit me too, Face?”

“What... no. Of course not.” Face took a step towards Murdock and Murdock took two quick steps away, expression wary. “Murdock, come on, man. It's just me.”

“Yeah, I see you,” Murdock said, keeping distance between them. “Seen you go all anger management on those fellas a second ago too. What's that about, huh? Where'd that come from?”

That stopped Face in his tracks. “What...? Murdock, what are you talking about?”

“See, I wouldn't have reckoned you being one to go for beating up queers, seeing as you get more cock than Ricky Martin.” Murdock licked the corner of his mouth and Face glared back at him. Not that he was wrong, just that there were nicer ways to call a guy a slut. “But, I've been wrong before. Seen a lot of guys in the army play that way. Thought better of you though, Face, I really did.”

There was a slick shiny patch on Murdock's cheek that caught the light when he shook his head. Face knew exactly what it was from and maybe he found himself staring at it a little too long because Murdock made an impatient noise and rocked back on his heels. “What? You got nothing to say? You just run in and do your flying-fists-of-fury-Chuck-Norris-hate-crime routine and we don't even get a witty quip at the end? That there's the saddest thing of all. What are you even _doing_ out here, Face?”

“I was looking for you,” Face said distantly. He barely recognised his own voice.

“Well, you found me.” Murdock spread his arms wide. “Here I am! Now what? You sure you don't want to hit me? Cos it kinda looks like maybe you really do.”

Face realised his hands were still clenched into fists and his entire body held tight. God alone knew what expression was on his face if Murdock, who was scrappy as they came, was still making sure to stay out of range. He took several deep breaths and forced his muscles to relax slightly. “I'm not going to hit you, dumbass. And I wasn't... I wasn't _queer-bashing_ , okay? I was trying to help you. Those guys were...”

“...those guys were letting me blow them,” Murdock said in the voice of one talking to a particularly slow child. “I'm pretty sure you know what that looks like.”

“Those guys were using you,” Face said firmly.

“Really?” Murdock tilted his head, expression dangerous. “How do you figure, Face?”

What to say to that. He could say that Murdock was barely three months out of a psyche ward and took so many pills that he should rattle every time he sneezed. Or he could say that Murdock was too trusting and people would take advantage of that if you let them.

“There were three of them,” Face said instead. “And they've got you out here in this alley on your knees. What would you call it?”

“Well, for you, I'd call it a typical Friday night.”

He was going to pay for that one when this was all over. “Yeah, well. You're not like me.”

“Oh? So, what, you can't get laid tonight so no one else is allowed to? Is that it?”

“Hey! It's not that I _can't_ get laid it's... that's not the issue right now, okay?” Face pointed his finger, starting to get a bit pissed. “This isn't you, Murdock. You're not like this.”

Murdock curled his lip and the alley light sliced across his teeth and across that slick patch on his cheek, giving him a smile that was far too full of teeth and each tooth razor sharp. “Then what am I like, Face? _Do_ tell.”

His voice had taken on an arch almost-British tone, slipping into a character without even noticing. Losing himself that easily. It made it suddenly easy for Face to answer. “On your good days you're crazy and this isn't a good day. You've barely slept this week and yesterday you smashed every mirror in the apartment for no reason – you remember that? What are you like? You're like a guy who almost got his throat cut a few hours ago and is out here blowing strangers because he's not thinking straight. That's what you're like.”

“It wasn't for no reason.” Murdock, of course, fixated on the least important part of what he was saying. “Just because you don't understand something doesn't mean it's not important, okay?”

Face shook his head. “Sure. Okay. And just because it sounds like a good idea at the time doesn't mean you should go with guys who ask you to follow them into an alley. I'm not... I'm not _blaming_ you, man, but you need to be more careful. You need to think.”

“They didn't ask me,” Murdock said. “I asked them.”

All the air went out of Face's lungs at that. Murdock's words, quiet as they had been, seemed to echo through the alley as Face tried to make sense of them.

He couldn't do it. Couldn't make sense of this coming from Murdock.

Murdock shrugged awkwardly under Face's stare and leaned back against the wall, crossing his arms tight across his chest. “I went over to them at the bar and I asked them,” he repeated, still making no sense. “I just... I just needed something. Something to cut through, you know? Something to let me know I'm here.”

Face opened his mouth, not knowing what he was going to say until he heard the words in the air. “You don't need that.”

“I do,” Murdock said. “Sometimes I do. Tonight I did. I just... I just get so sick of being what people see when they look at me, you know? The crazy pilot. The nutjob. The guy you can laugh at or pity but never really rely on. I just needed... I just needed someone to look at me differently for a while. To show me I could be something else.”

“I don't see you like that,” Face said distantly.

“You _do_.” Murdock looked at him with helpless eyes. “All of you do. You're doing it now, Face, you're doing it and you don't even realise it. It's why you came out here, isn't it? Because crazy old Murdock couldn't possibly want something like this. Because I'm not like you, right? Isn't that what you said? Because I need you to charge in and rescue me from this kind of stuff. Like I'm some kind of kid.”

Face didn't know how to respond to that. The worst part of it was that it was all true. That was what he had been seeing when he looked at Murdock: a kid, someone who needed taken care of. Maybe worse still was the fact that he hadn't been wrong to do so. That was definitely part of Murdock. He just hadn't known there was this side to him as well.

All he said though was, “You don't need to blow strangers in alleys just to make people see you different.”

Murdock laughed at that, sounding utterly lost. “What do I do then, Face? Can you tell me? I've been trying, but nothing else works. I know guys in the Army, I _knew_ guys. But that was just... it was just bad. They'd see me this new way but they'd see me the old way too and it all... it all got twisted around in my head until I couldn't get away from it. I couldn't be right no matter what I did.”

This was actually starting to make some kind of sense. “So you're... so you're gay then. _Gay_ gay.”

Murdock looked at Face like he was an idiot. “Well, yeah. Of course I am.”

Of course he was.

It had honestly never occurred to Face that Murdock might actually be gay. Sure, he'd thought about having sex with him, but it wasn't like he hadn't had sex with straight guys before. A lot of guys were straight up until the moment they met Face. He hadn't thought about how the Army might be for someone who guys wouldn't switch sides for and who didn't know how to spot the three beer queers or the guys flying under the radar. He hadn't thought this was another thing Murdock might have struggled with.

“You couldn't just go to a gay bar and buy a guy a drink?” he asked cautiously, feeling his way around the contours of this problem. “Maybe go home with him, have some sex in a bed. Or do you really just go for alleyway spit-roasts?”

Murdock hunched a little into himself. “Well, I... I didn't want to give the Army any more excuses to kick me out, you know? But I did... I did try and and. Well. It didn't really go great. I was kinda nervous and I didn't know what I was supposed to _say_ and then things got a bit messed up and... Well. I mean, I went home with guys a few times but it... It wasn't good.”

Yeah, when you put it like that, Murdock in a gay bar did seem like a bit of a disaster waiting to happen. He could look the part, sure: get him to comb his hair and put on a pair of jeans and he'd turn enough heads. And then those heads would register his particular brand of twitchy strangeness and the bodies they were attached to would run a mile. That would be his best case scenario. Face could just imagine the type of guys who'd see Murdock losing it in a bar and still want to take him home. Yeah, he bet it hadn't been good at all.

Murdock rubbed at the back of his head, eyes distant. “It just seemed easier to do it this way. More honest.”

Face looked at him for a moment before saying gently, “Murdock, man. You could have come to me, you know? You know I'm into that. You want to have sex with guys – I'm a guy. Seems pretty simple to me.”

Murdock laughed shortly and his eyes sharpened. “You donating to the mentally ill this year instead of single mothers, Faceman?”

An insult wrapped up in a choice bit of self-deprecation. Face admired his style. “Oh, shut up. It wouldn't be charity. You like sucking cock: I like getting my cock sucked. I even like reciprocating so everyone's a winner.”

“Wow.” Murdock blinked a couple of times. “Really? That's really a line you use to get people into bed? How do you ever get laid again?”

“It helps that I'm really hot.”

“I guess so.”

“Look.” Face took a step forward, palms raised. “You want a line? You want me to take you out on a date with some wine and candlelight and all that shit? Or do you want to have some hot gay sex with your good friend Face and then get pizza afterwards? Which sounds better to you?”

Murdock looked slightly embarrassed. “Um. Actually, Hannibal kind of ordered me not to let you have sex with me.”

 _That sneaky old cock-blocking bastard_. “Oh?” Face tried to keep the ice out of his voice. “What did he say exactly?”

Murdock waved a hand around vaguely. “Something about family and brothers and that one time in Russia when you caught crabs.”

Face was going to kill Hannibal. Slowly.

“That never happened,” he said quickly. Those little fuckers had been invincible, probably radioactive too. He'd had to burn so many good suits.

Murdock just looked at him so Face sighed. “Yeah, Hannibal might have said something similar to me. The brothers part, not about the crabs. But, whatever. I'm not really so much into being told who I can and can't sleep with, you know? He'll be fine. He'll get a bit pissy and then we'll get a new mission lined up and he'll be too busy thinking about the plan to care about any of that. Trust me.”

“Yeahhh, he said you'd probably say something like that too. And that if you _did_ I was meant to mention someone called...”

“Look,” Face interrupted, losing patience and really not wanting to hear that name ever again. “I can _guarantee_ you that Hannibal would be a million times happier with you and me knocking boots than he would be with you blowing rednecks behind bars and catching some mutant strain of herpes that only sheep are meant to get. But if you're not into it that's cool. I'll think you're a moron because, let's face it, I'm a Helluva catch, but that's cool. I can teach you how not to scare away the boys in the bars instead if that's what you want. What do you say?”

Murdock tilted his head to the side and looked Face up and down critically. “Well, I don't know. You're not really my type.”

“Liar.” Face was everyone's type.

“And it just really doesn't seem all that _brotherly_ , you know?” Murdock was clearly aiming for serious but the smile was giving him away, the sarcastic fuck.

It was so easy to return that grin. “Yeah, well, I don't think I'm really too clear on this concept of brothers. I'm an orphan, man, what do you want from me?”

Instead of answering, Murdock just beckoned. Face could get on board with that.

Up close, Murdock's mouth still looked swollen and used and he let out a shaky laugh when Face thumbed his bottom lip. Face mentally punched the air when Murdock didn't go in for the kiss and instead shoved him up against the wall and went down to his knees: Face loved kissing, he just loved getting his cock sucked more. Besides, he knew exactly where Murdock's mouth had recently been and there needed to be some serious tooth brushing between that and any swapping of saliva.

Luckily, he was less squeamish when it came to his cock, because Murdock was making short work of his fly and humming the theme tune from The Jetsons. Face settled a hand on his head, carding it through his hair. “Ohhh, Hannibal is not going to like this,” Face said, almost to himself. “I don't think this is what brothers do together in his world.”

“Well then.” Murdock had Face's cock in his hand and was grinning up at him. “Guess it's a good thing you're an orphan and I'm an only child, huh?”

And when he put it like that it was hard to disagree.


End file.
